


Never Yours, Always Theirs

by Welsper



Category: Hylics (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Past Wayne/Gibby, Post-Canon, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welsper/pseuds/Welsper
Summary: Wayne never really learned how to have a relationship with even one person.Now there are three of them.
Relationships: Wayne/Somsnosa/Pongorma/Dedusmuln
Comments: 9
Kudos: 89
Collections: Happy Belated Treatmas 2019





	Never Yours, Always Theirs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piinutbutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Piinutbutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/pseuds/Piinutbutter) in the [happy_belated_treatmas_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/happy_belated_treatmas_2019) collection. 



“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Wayne asked and looked into the swirling skies. It looked just like the afterlife. It felt like it too.

But Gibby was here and so it couldn’t be real. Wayne wasn’t sure if he was happy about that.

“You died,” Wayne said and dropped to the sand below. The water was warm around his feet. Gibby sat down next to him. “And you’ll stay dead.”

“You killed me.”

If that sounded like an accusation rather than a statement of fact, it was because everything Gibby had ever said to him sounded like one. Wayne ruled wrong, he lived wrong, he loved wrong. An unwanted brother, a worthless husband, a weak king. He had always been wrong, wrong, wrong in Gibby’s eyes. And there had been a time when Wayne had craved Gibby’s approval, his love even. To be right in his eyes. He had never gotten it, but that was okay now. What he had seen of what passed for love for Gibby now made him realize he could live well without it. That it wasn’t love, not any kind of it. It had taken so very long, but life on Earth had opened his eyes.

Love was kindness and gentle touches. It was support and sitting together on a couch, understanding each others' hearts even if there were no words. It was laughing and fighting and forgiving. Finding one's own bonds instead of being forced into one. Somsnosa had taught him that much. Nobody on the Moon ever bothered to.

“I had to.”

“Did you?”

“You were going to kill everyone on Earth! You left me no choice. I was done running from you.”

“They are only Earthlings,” Gibby scoffed. “We could have just made new ones.”

“From what, Gibby? There’s no reshaping with the planet gone. There is no flesh and will without earth and clay and you would have destroyed it all.”

Wayne finally looked up, into Gibby’s eyes. He had never liked doing that.

“Just like you destroyed yourself.”

Gibby reached out to him and his hands cradled Wayne’s head. Wayne suppressed the urge to flinch back, run from the memories these hands had given him. No gentle caress, only pain and bruises and the only kind of attention Gibby ever gave him in life.

“I wouldn’t have had to, if you had only lived as I told you to. We could have been great, you and me… Rule together, just like we were meant to.”

“Like you never wanted to,” Wayne said and raised his hands to cup Gibby’s cheeks. His skin was as cold as he remembered it being. “You couldn’t rule together with a copy of yourself. We were meant to be two halves making a whole and look how that turned out for us.”

“I meant it. When I said I was sorry.”

“Did you?” Wayne asked softly. He wanted it to be true. He had always, always wanted there to be a Gibby that felt something for others. That felt something for him. But he knew now there had never been a Gibby like that. It was hard to accept an apology from someone who committed genocide ten seconds later.

“The people of the Moon won’t return for you feeling sorry.”

Wayne grabbed Gibby by the wrists and pushed his hands down.

“You never change, Gibby. If you can’t have it, no one can, not then, not now.”

“It was given to us to use as we see fit.”

“We’re not gods, Gibby. Just two messed up people. But for what it’s worth, I forgive you. Not for what you did to the people of the Moon and not for what you would have done to the people of Earth.”

Wayne raised his hands to his own throat. He would never forget that touch, that pain, but it was the past now. Gibby was the past and he had no desire to carry it with him any longer.

“But for what you did to me. Now go, go wherever it is lost will goes.”

And they were no longer in this dream afterlife, and Wayne did not know where they were. It might be a while before he ever found out. A point where what no longer was clay went, when there was no longer anything left to reshape, when the flesh had dried and withered beyond the point of saving it.

“Maybe we’ll see each other again,” Gibby said as he turned around. Wayne managed a weak smile.

“Let’s hope not.”

“I hope you’ll be happy with these… people,” Gibby said and then he was no more.

When Wayne opened his eyes again and was greeted with the familiar sight of his own ceiling and the soft press of Somsnosa and Dedusmuln at his side while Pongorma was snoring up a storm, there were tears on his face.

It looked so strange to him, the empty sky. The stars were still there, shining and glimmering and beautiful, but they were all that were. When Wayne had first come to Earth, it had looked just as strange seeing the Moon up there.

And now it was gone.

“This is going to make adventuring at night harder, huh? It’s so dark now.”

Wayne looked up at Somsnosa’s form leaning over him. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and Wayne leaned into her embrace. Her hair was soft against his cheek when she cuddled up to him, and he turned his face to catch her lips in a kiss.

“Leaving me in there alone to lose my hearing from Pongorma felling a forest? Left all those royal manners up there?”

Wayne had to laugh. Somsnosa always knew how to make him feel better. He wasn’t sure he deserved it, but he was happy for it.

“Too bad, we can suffer together now. Come on, let’s go back. Pongorma would never let you hear the end of it if you died from catching a cold. He’d be telling the fish, he’d holler at the cultists. He might even write a song about it and make me perform it.”

Somsnosa pulled him to his feet easily.

“It might be our greatest hit! Here lies Wayne, Rex Lunar Emeritus, died from sneezing too hard, a tragic and pathetic affair.”

She stared up into that terrifying, beautiful void.

“But really. Don’t run from me, okay? Don’t run from us.”

Her hand on his was strong and firm and kind and although he could not see her face in the dark, he heard the smile in her voice.

“We’ll keep you safe.”

She pushed him back onto the bed on top of Dedusmuln and Wayne felt Pongorma’s arm tighten around his waist.

“Foolish one, you must get proper sleep,” his low voice rasped against his ear and Wayne suppressed a shudder at that. “So you may live to fight another day.”

“It must be hard,” Dedusmuln said softly and Wayne felt their hand upon his cheek. It was warm. “Get some rest.”

It was hard to think of it as having saved anything, even if Earth was spared from Gibby’s wrath. The Moon was still gone. The world was still in turmoil.

But Wayne still had them. And if finally standing up to Gibby had given him enough strength to protect them and this home he had chosen for himself, then wasn’t that enough for now?

* * *

“Wakey wakey, eggs and – Pon, you speared the pillow. Hold on...” Somsnosa reached out and pulled the ruined pillow case from the knight’s horns when they got ready for some more adventuring after waking up in the morning. Feathers showered the bedroom and Wayne got up to fetch the broom.

Pongorma coughed and without thinking, Wayne pulled a feather from where it was stuck to the corner of his lips.

“Sorry,” he said and turned away. Pongorma just looked at him with his head half-turned. Was that a smile? Maybe he was laughing at him.

“Think nothing of it,” Pongorma said and Wayne wished it was that easy.

As Somsnosa helped Dedusmuln put on their armor, she ran her hands over the bronze plate.

“Isn’t it heavy?”

“Quite so! But I became strong, with your help. It weighs a lot less to me than it did at the beginning of our journey,” Dedusmuln said and tightened the greaves.

“Do not let your training falter!”

Pongorma buckled the straps of the cuirass and Dedusmuln laughed together with Wayne. He was always making them fight, drawing his weapons at any sort of excuse and if they took him up on it it wasn’t to humor him but because they wanted to.

“Don’t worry, I will keep my strength. Digging is hard work!”

Wayne groaned at that. Dedusmuln made them dig in the sand and dirt so often, and they gladly did it, but damn, was it a mess and a strain. With the sun bearing down on their clay cruelly, downright melting them at points. And usually, all for some shards Dedusmuln found some meaning in but Wayne saw nothing special about. It was fun anyway, if he admitted it to himself.

“It looks so different from Pongorma’s… where did you get it anyway?”

Wayne held one of Dedusmuln’s hands in his own, turning the gauntleted fingers around with some curiosity.

“I found it on one of my digs! It’s really old,” Dedusmuln said and the excitement in their voice was honestly the cutest. When one heard them talk of the past, it was as if it was right in front of them. As if all those ruins and bones came back to life and with them that old, strange world. Wayne wondered if they would think of them as strange too. Maybe they did.

“Centuries. Millennia even!” Dedusmuln looked a little guilty, their tentacles cringing inwards as if to hide even more of their face. “I shouldn’t even be wearing these… it’s not… an archaeologist should preserve things, but here I am dragging this around with me.”

“A most splendid craftsmanship if I may say so! Surely they were fine warriors, to be wearing these! And they would surely be glad to find their armor still in use. The dead have no need of these.” Pongorma clapped Dedusmuln on the shoulder, and he looked as proud of them as he was of those warriors of old. Anyone who fought with all their strength was someone Pongorma respected.

“It is hard to find out who they really were,” Dedusmuln continued, “for there is so little left of those who came before us.”

“Can’t we meet them in the afterlife?” Somsnosa wondered. “Can’t we just ask them there?”

“They didn’t have that kind of thing, I believe. When they died, they… it was back before there was clay. True flesh and meat, if you will. They could not simply be reshaped, for their flesh was their own.”

“Huh. Sounds weird,” Somsnosa said.

“But I found out their names! Conquistadors, they were.”

“What does that mean?”

“Conqueror.”

“Oh, now don’t you be going all mad on us as well! We’re running out of planetary bodies to blow up here,” Wayne warned and if the others noticed the slight tremor in his voice, they were kind enough not to say anything.

“Ah, do not worry. I only want to conquer the past,” Dedusmuln laughed. Their horns did that adorable jiggle with them, scrunching slightly with every word. Wayne kind of wanted to reach out and pet them. If they would let him? Somsnosa shot him a grin and Wayne stared back for a moment, puzzled, wondering what that look meant.

“They sailed around the world, when there was more of it. In search of new lands and people and treasure,” Dedusmuln continued, leaning on the window sill, basking in the morning sun. The bronze armor gleamed in the light, a beacon Wayne knew he would follow anywhere.

It hadn’t been so long since he had met these people, but it felt like forever and Wayne wanted to add another eternity on top of that. Back on the Moon, all he had ever felt like he didn’t belong. But with them, he did.

He turned away at these thoughts, feeling a blush creep on his face. It was kind of stupid to think this, wasn’t it? Wayne should consider himself lucky enough Somsnosa wanted him. No need to push his luck. But when he looked at Dedusmuln and Pongorma, he felt the same way, if he was true to himself. When Dedusmuln talked about these things, and Pongorma fought so fiercely, it was the same as with Somnosa. The same love.

That’s what that look meant then. She knew. Well, she had always been better at that than him.

“Sounds like us!” Somsnosa declared. “We got about three boats! Let’s be conquistadors. Find some new places to tour.”

“Let’s head out then,” Wayne said.

“Where to?”

He shrugged. Wherever was good, as long as it was with them.

* * *

“Ow.”

Wayne groaned as he came to in the afterlife. That one had hurt. Weren’t they getting stronger lately, those cultists? They just could not let a band jam in peace, could they.

“Did you see how it cleaved me in half? That was sick!” Somsnosa shouted next to him with a bright grin on her face. Wayne winced a little at the volume. Fresh ears were so sensitive.

“Yeah. It was pretty cool. How do you think Dedusmuln and Pongorma are holding out?”

“If Pon’s the last one he will taunt us all day again. Wonder what kind of training exercises he’s cooking up now already...”

Somnosa raised her balled fists to the sky.

“I believe in you, Dedusmuln! Hold out, even if you’re just a head!”

They sat on their knees next to the portal as they waited for their friends to arrive. Somnosa cheered as Pongorma was the first to arrive, holding his head. He shrugged as he saw them and gave them a little smile.

“It appears I have gotten rusty. All of us! We must commit more violence, so we do not forget the taste for blood!”

Somsnosa sighed, but Wayne could see the corner of her lips curl upwards.

“Sure, sure...”

Wayne threw a fish at his head and Pongorma caught it easily with a laugh.

They all applauded when Dedusmuln joined them finally. They scratched the back of their head – they never did so well with praise. But from the way their tentacles curled, Wayne could tell they were happy.

“My brave warrior!” Somsnosa got up and kissed them on the cheek and Wayne for a moment wondered if he could do that too. Somsnosa made it look so easy…

“Ah, thank you,” Dedusmuln said and threw the group’s accumulated spoils into the meat grinder.

“Should we make hamburgers with this? It’s such a nice day.”

The smell of grilled meat wafted through the thick air of the afterlife.

Wayne set his empty plate down on the cooler when he was done. Already he felt stronger for eating the meat of his fallen enemies. Maybe they lived on in him?

The sun was setting and it was also not, the way it was here. Time stood still, and it was eternal. A mere place to rest for warriors, to stay a while, to become stronger. When Wayne looked down the horizon, he could not see that other place he had visited in his dreams.

“Are you looking for someone?”

Pongorma’s voice ripped Wayne out of his thoughts. He shook his head.

“I already know he’s not here.”

“Is it guilt you feel?”

Wayne did not know that himself.

“Do not. For all his madness, Gibby was a warrior too. This is the way of violence, the way of strife. Eventually, someone stronger will come along and you will meet your end. And so it was for him.”

“I was too weak on my own, I could not… I _ran_ , Pongorma,” Wayne whispered. “Without you, I couldn’t have...”

Pongorma’s arm around his shoulder felt heavy, but comforting. Wayne did not resist being pulled against his chest.

“There is no shame in retreat, Wayne. There is no shame in finding comrades, an army to fight besides you and strengthen your back. He was a formidable foe.”

“He was my… my...”

“Did you love him?”

Wayne frowned. Pongorma was not one for mincing words and the question cut deep.

“Maybe I did, once. Gibby, he… he wasn’t made right, I think. Even from when we were children, he…”

Wayne let out a frustrated sigh.

“I don’t even know what we were supposed to be! But look where that got us.”

“I did think it strange there were two of you. Back in my day, there was only one Queen. She was magnificent, and she was terrifying. The full and the new, two sides of one and the same. And so it had always been, before her, and after her I should think. One Moon, one monarch.”

“Did you fight for her?”

“I tore apart the very sky for her.”

Pongorma grabbed one of Wayne’s hands.

“I would do the same for you, if you would have it of me. That and more.”

Wayne swallowed around that clump of clay in this throat.

“For someone like me? That experiment was a total failure, in the end.”

“Was it? It made you,” Pongorma said with a strange look in his eyes and Wayne could feel his breath come short. He turned his face and stepped back before he did something he would surely regret. His hands lingered on Pongorma’s chest a moment too long, but the knight said nothing.

“You guys want another burger?” Dedusmuln shouted and Wayne had never wanted one more in his life. Or well, death.

“Excuse me,” he said and ducked out from under Pongorma’s arm.

* * *

Somsnosa’s had her chin in her hands as they watched Dedusmuln and Pongorma in the distance. Pongorma was showing them some new tricks with the sword and Dedusmuln was eager to learn, as always. She turned to Wayne with half a smile on her face.

“They’re cute, aren’t they?”

“Huh?”

Wayne probably looked as dumb as he felt.

“Those two! They’re cute.”

There was an expectant look in her face and Wayne was not quite sure how to react. Should he agree? But they were. That feeling in his chest, it was the same as for her. When he didn’t hear their voices, he missed them. When he didn’t see their faces, he worried something had happened. He yearned for them, even if they were right next to him.

“Do you think they’d want us too?”

“Is it… is it okay to want that?” Wayne asked her with a quiet voice. That was not something that was done. But maybe on Earth it was? Did it really matter?

“Of course it is! It’s fine to love people, Wayne.”

“I didn’t say I…”

But it was like that, wasn’t it? Wayne wanted them near him as much as he wanted Somsnosa near. He had almost dreaded the end of their adventure together, their quest. Because what if it meant they left him again? Gone off to wherever it was they were drawn. Back to their lonely digs, or a slumber unless someone else came along… Wayne didn’t want that.

Somsnosa reached out for his hand.

“He’s not going to hurt you for it, Wayne… it’s okay now.”

She pulled and Wayne startled forward, into her arms.

Dedusmuln and Pongorma were chattering away and laughing, swinging their weapons as they came back to Wayne and Somsnosa. Pongorma stuck his sword in the ground.

“Are you alright?” Dedusmuln asked.

“Wayne’s totally in love with you guys, but he doesn’t want to say it. Oh, and me too.”

“Ah, I see.”

Wayne groaned and hid his face on Somsnosa’s shoulder, absolutely refusing to look up.

“Let us hope you love as fiercely as you fight then!” Pongorma laughed and dropped down next to them with Dedusmuln following.

“You are slacking lately, if I may say so myself! We must fight more!”

“We’re kind of on vacation.”

“The enemy will not grant us that rest!”

Wayne felt a strong hand tug at his chin and Pongorma lifted it to make him look into his eyes.

“I would not lose you to them, Wayne. I would not see you wither and dry for not fighting and reshaping yourself to adapt to a cruel world.”

He held his breath in anticipation when Pongorma pulled him closer. Their lips were almost touching and he could feel the knight's hot breath touch his skin.

“So if you would have me, truly… know that I will not leave your side again. That I will make you better and you will make us better in turn.”

“You do not need to think that because the knights of Viithorn were sworn to protect -”

Pongorma’s passionate kiss shut him up. He kissed like he fought and Wayne found his head dizzy when he drew back.

“I care not for that! I care for _you_ to be safe. You, Wayne. Not you, King of a Moon that is no longer there, King of the Earth that you freed from the rule of a madman. For all of you!”

Pongorma wrapped his arms around Somsnosa next and titled her backwards. She made a tiny noise as he pressed his lips to hers and wound her arms around his strong neck.

Oh. That looked nice, actually.

Dedusmuln only giggled quietly when they were grabbed next and their tentacles vibrated slightly as Pongorma found their mouth they only sometimes showed for a smile or a laugh. Wayne finally decided that he could allow himself and reached out to pet them. They felt soft under his hands and he could feel them lean into the touch.

“And you, then?”

“I don’t follow you around for the paper cups, you know,” Dedusmuln said, slightly out of breath.

“Although I do like them… But I like you a lot more than that. Ah, I am not so good with words! But I read something once… never found the rest of it. How did it go?”

Dedusmuln reached out to them and drew them into their embrace, pressing gentle kisses on the top of their heads.

“I would not wish any companions in the world but you.”

“And you shall have them.”

Wayne sat there a little stunned.

“Really?”

Just like that? Was it that easy? He tried to calm down the hammering in his chest, but it didn’t work at all. He was… happy.

“Of course.”

Dedusmuln hugged them closer. They didn’t seem to want to let go. That was okay. Wayne didn’t want them to.

“Weren’t we kind of, all along?” Somsnosa asked from within that comfortable cage of arms. “None of you ever said anything about sleeping together. Or touching. Or the baths!”

“Who would complain?”

Somsnosa boxed Pongorma in the shoulder at that, gently enough for such a strong woman. Pongorma shoved back and they cackled together.

“Adventure bonds the hearts and minds,” Dedusmuln said, sighing contently as Wayne rubbed their horns. “I think I liked you guys when I first saw you.”

“But I have to say,” Wayne started, his head smushed against Somsnosa's shoulder in their little pile, “blowing up the Moon is such a shit first date.”

They laughed together and so did Wayne, so hard until he cried and they didn’t scold him for it and held him a little tighter.

“Let’s find a better one, then. I hear the mountains are nice this time of the year.”

“After we beat the cultists out of them,” Pongorma said with excitement in his voice.

“After that.”

And as they laid together on the grass, hands and hearts entwined, the dark skies above them did not seem so empty and lonely to Wayne.

There was no longer any void up there and in him, for they filled it completely.


End file.
